When the King of France heard these tidings,—he cast down his head, his hands he began to wring.—Throughout all France the news began to spread;—woe was to them all!—Much was the sorrow and the weeping—that was in all France among old and young;—The greatest part of the land began to sing,—“Alas! and welaway!”
Away, thou young pope! what will be thy counsel?—Thou hast lost thy cardinals at thy greatest need;—thou wilt never recover them for any kind of reward,—for truth I tell thee.—Go forth to Rome to atone for thy misdeeds;—pray to good saints that they let thee speed better:—unless thou workest more wisely, thou losest land and people,—the crown fell well to the. (?)
Alas! thou simple France, it may appear a shame for thee,—that a few fullers make thee so tame;—sixty thousand in a day they made trip quickly, (?)—with count and knight.—Thereof have the Flemings very good game,—and swear by St. Omer and eke by St. James,—if they come there any more, it will fall them to shame,—with them to fight.
I tell you for truth, the battle thus begun,—between France and Flanders, how they were foes;—for the French had put the Count of Flanders in prison,—with treason faithlessly.—If the Prince of Wales his life might have,—it will happen to the King of France more bitter than soot;—unless he before-hand do make good amends for it,—very sorely he shall rue it.
The following song seems to have been popular about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The wolf and the fox pourtray exactly the characters of the two classes of people who then oppressed and plundered the middle and lower classes.
A SONG ON THE TIMES.
[MS. Harl. No. 913, fol. 44, vo. written about A.D. 1308.]
Whose thenchith up this carful lif,
Niȝte and dai that we beth inne,